3 Pharaoh asked the brothers, “What is your occupation?”
“Your servants are shepherds,” they replied to Pharaoh, “just as our fathers were.” Genesis 47
We said yesterday that Joseph could have been a shepherd just like his family, but God had blessed him with other gifts and removed him from his family. God may not want us to follow the traditions of our family, He may have a different path for our lives. It may take strength and determination to walk our own paths!
7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed (or greeted) Pharaoh, 8 Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?”
9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”
When we get older and perhaps no longer work, we may graduate to the next question people ask, ‘How old are you?’ Pharaoh asked Jacob his age and told Joseph to, ‘settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen’.
11 So Joseph SETTLED his father and his brothers in Egypt and GAVE THEM PROPERTY IN THE BEST PART OF THE LAND, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed. 12 Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household WITH FOOD, ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF THEIR CHILDREN (there was enough food for all of them, even in the famine).
Jacob and his family were not Egyptians, it wasn’t their land and never would be, YET GOD GAVE THEM THE BEST OF THE LAND. God brought them down to Egypt in a hard time when many were short of food and other necessities and blessed them. We should take note of this today, we believers are only passing through this world, but our God is well able to keep us and bless us here!
The land became Pharaoh’s, 21 and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other.
The whole population of Egypt became serfs to Pharaoh (didn’t own anything, just worked the land for Pharaoh) but God’s people prospered in Goshen, the place set apart for them.
27 Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.
God’s people were never meant to be slaves and God severely punished those who enslaved them. The Pharaohs of this time had better watch out, God sees and knows everything that’s been done to His children.
24 “‘“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”’
27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” Numbers 6
Immanuel, Stay Strong, God is with us.